1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of retail packaging and displays and, more particularly, to a retail product dispenser that receives a cartridge that holds product packages and further includes a feed mechanism to cause the product in the cartridge to be delivered to a consumer, while the cartridge remains at the dispenser location.
2. Description of Related Art
There are a number of types of product displays; however, one of the basic product displays consists of traditional shelves on which individual products are placed. This arrangement is found in most retail stores, including clothing stores and in particular, in grocery stores. Typically, the products are arranged and loaded for bulk shipment into SKU cartons that are currently sized, designed and packed considering only operational and pallet size parameters and using package counts (usually based on dozens in English countries).
For display and sale at a retail store, the individual product packages are then unpacked and removed from the SKU carton and placed either on the shelves or into any of a variety of conventional displays. This is a very time consuming and labor intensive task during which a store stocker cuts open the SKU carton and individually places the products. The product is arranged in rows, etc. and may be stacked on top of one another. The stocker then must discard the empty SKU carton and other packaging material as waste.
Another associated disadvantage of this arrangement is that the stocker must continuously check and rotate the stock so that it remains fresh. This requires continuously pulling the older stock forward and adding the newer stock behind it. This is a time consuming task and if delayed, the shelves develop an unkempt appearance. Further, if this stock rotation process is neglected, older stock may remain at the rear of the shelf, possibly past its expiration. A variety of displays which enable automatic stock rotation are known to the art, but all must be loaded with individual product packages, as previously described.
One at a time dispensing packages have been known to the art. Such packages usually comprise a vertical carton for housing a number of objects such as batteries or cans or other cylindrical objects, where a slot is perforated or cut in one side. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 902,347 “Vending Carton or Package”; U.S. Pat. No. 1,898,056 “Dispensing Carton”; U.S. Pat. No. 3,300,115 “Compartmented Dispensing Carton Formed from a Single Blank”; or U.S. Pat. No. 5,836,478 “Battery Dispenser”. There have also been some horizontal dispensing cartons, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,178,242 “One Piece Dispensing Carton for Cylindrical Objects”. While such designs are called “dispensers”, they do not actually dispense, but rather allow the products to feed by gravity toward an opening where an arrangement of walls in combination with said opening prevents them from issuing forth on their own, rather enabling a person to manually remove the items in a one-at-a-time manner. In essence they present the products for selection, but otherwise impede their issuance therefrom.
Some such cartons were designed for point-of-sale displays, such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,996,344 “Dispensing Carton” or U.S. Pat. No. 3,203,554 “Can Carton Rack”. In such cases, the dispensing carton sits on a conventional shelf or an inclined wire rack of general applicability, and when a carton is empty another carton of another kind can be substituted, which is not desirable from the point of view of the product manufacturer, who would like to retain the shelf space for its own products as proprietary retail space.
Serpentine racks for use with cans or other cylindrical packages are in common use in stores, where the cans are retained by rails or shelves on a back-and-forth path. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,915,571 “Device for Loading Cans, Bottles or the like into a Dispensing Mechanism”, or U.S. Pat. No. 6,991,116 “Multi-Chute Gravity Feed Dispenser Display”. Serpentine racks are most often fed manually one can at a time, although these two patents show the use of cartons or a specially designed device for dump type feeding the cans into the upper end of the serpentine.
While this intends to reduce stocking time and labor, it has the following drawbacks: When relatively heavy canned product packages, such as soup or canned vegetables and the like, are loaded one-at-a-time into typical roll-down, serpentine systems such as the patents above illustrate (especially when they are dump loaded), the cans pick up speed as they roll downward through the channels. At each transition, especially where vertical drops are involved, said cans literally “hammer” against the floor and wall surfaces of the display housing. This causes a significant durability problem for such devices, especially when they are fabricated of plastics, as they often are. The raucous noise it creates is also disconcerting to nearby shoppers and presents a negative shopping experience.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,055,293 “Storage and Dispensing Rack for Cans and the Like” and U.S. Pat. No. 3,923,159 “Product Display and Article Dispensing Device” combine vertical dispensing packages of cans from pre-existing conventional cartons with a gravity feeding rack or roll down serpentine tracks. These present the following disadvantages. The cartons are, like the prior art cited above, conventional boxes with slots cut or perforated on one end, the intent of which is to enable the cans to automatically issue forth from the carton and into the dispensing portions of the racks. Such packages are not specifically designed for the reliability of such can flow and have a tendency to mis-feed when two cans jam in the exit slot. This is especially true when the opening is not pre-designed, but hand cut by the stocking person. Both are constructed without regard for standard shelving already in place at retail stores and the efficient use thereof. They either require retailers to invest in extensive additional specialized racks to provide a gravity feed apparatus and/or are intended as a display only and make no efficient use of retail space and other potential synergies.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,828 “Storage and Dispensing Rack” is representative of systems where products sit on inclined shelves and, theoretically, self-feed to the front of the shelf by sliding down the incline. As a practical matter, friction presents a major problem in such systems, and is particularly a problem when the products are retained in cardboard trays which have a comparatively rough surface. That condition is further aggravated during shipment when the products are hammered into the tray floor causing indents which act to further hold the products in their respective positions in the tray.